reuters

Remember bartering with chickens for health care? Well it seems like a bank has taken that advice to a whole new level when it comes to debt collection:

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters Life!) - This little piggy went to market -- to pay off a Russian woman's overdue debt to a bank.

Court officers in far eastern Russia have seized a piglet from a woman who owes a bank 13,000 roubles ($432) and put it up for sale to recuperate some of the money, the regional branch of the Federal Bailiffs Service said on Thursday.

The woman had been given the seven-month-old piglet for safekeeping, but it was taken away after a court survey of her property found it to be her most valuable possession, the bailiffs service said in a statement.

Notice though that this occurred in Russia. Who knew that Tea Party darlings were so aligned with the Ruskies?

This one from Reuters really got my blood pressure boiling:

US will "push" out BP if spill response falls short

The U.S. government will move aside BP (BP.L) from the operation to try to halt the Gulf of Mexico oil spill if it decides the company is not performing as required in its response to the well leak, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Sunday.

"I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading," Salazar told reporters after visiting BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston.

"We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed," Salazar added, referring to the failure of containment efforts attempted so far by London-based BP to control the gushing undersea well one mile (1.6 km) down on the ocean floor.

And we are now 35 days into it and BP still looks like the boy trying to stick his finger in the hole of the dam.

BP leases this land from the U.S. They have been given more than their fair chance at fixing the leak, but the Obama administration keeps thinking that BP has all this “good faith” to stop the leak. David Axelrod even echoed that sentiment this morning on Chuck Todd’s show, when he said “BP is losing money on this leak, so they have all the best interests to stop it”. Really? Well then why haven’t they tried blowing the thing up? That’s the usual remedy and is met with much success, but the problem is that they can’t drill there anymore.

(photo credit: Reuters)

Finally Americans get to bear witness to some of the costs of war:

The arrival of remains of Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Myers, a 30-year-old supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, at Dover Air Force Base at 11 p.m. today marked the first time that the transfer of any of the nearly 5,000 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan was open to the media.

Last night I heard some right winger on CNN saying how this was so disrespectful to the family, and that will be their talking point. They forget that the family has to approve this. For some families its a mechanism to cope, while others feel it helps show the country what war really is. It doesn’t matter the reason, it only matters that the family gets to decide, and some right winger who champions for war but never fights has no right to tell them otherwise.

Reuters nails it on the head:

Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won.

It's good to see the media no longer buying the "they pick on me" meme Hillary was trying to put out there. If Hillary wants to come out of this looking good, then she must drop out. It is not about her, it's about the Democratic Party. Her continued path of "me me me" sure isn't portraying that though.

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby
Obama 49%
Clinton 36%

Survey USA
Clinton 52%
Obama 42%

So who will win? No one knows. Remember it's not about states, but delegates. As we saw in Nevada, it is possible for someone to win the popular vote, but loose in the delegate count.

Today will be very interesting. I'll have the tracker up a little later. This is a modified one to track all 24 states, but it's easy to use. Just click the link and you will get an expanded view of that state. For newer browsers it will overlay on your screen. For older browsers, or browsers without javascript, it will open up in a new window.

It doesn't look like it:

The recent price rally in farm commodities such as grains, oilseeds and sugar beet can be attributed partly to higher biofuel demand but their share of the blame has been exaggerated, a top official of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Loek Boonekamp, a division head in the Agro-food Trade and Markets Division at the Paris-based OECD, said the surge in farm product prices -- with cereals more than doubling last year -- would have happened even without the rise in biofuel production.

"Closing your eyes and blaming the current high prices to biofuels is just too simplistic," he told the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit.

The deniers want to blame the people trying to save our planet and ourselves for all the problems. The flaw in their logic is that it's false. Now we have proof coming that their claims are baseless, and that proof is from a food manufacturer. Of course they will try to spin this some other way.

Reuters is reporting:

President George W., Bush plans on Tuesday to veto a war spending bill that imposes timelines for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, and will then explain his action in a statement at the White House, an administration official said.

Bush will carry out his long-standing threat to veto the legislation after returning from a visit to U.S. Central Command in Tampa, White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

The president's statement was scheduled for 6:10 p.m. EDT (2210 GMT), he said.

And TPM has the video of a new ad that will be running nationally after that:

 And so the showdown begins.

Reuters is reporting this on the news of Bolton's resignation:

"Despite the support of a strong bipartisan majority of senators, Ambassador Bolton's confirmation was blocked by a Democrat filibuster, and this is a clear example of the breakdown in the Senate confirmation process," [Dana] Perino said.

Now at last check, the Bolton nomination was till in committee. Perhaps President Bush should make sure his spokespeople are better informed on the operation of our democracy. Filibusters don't occur in committee and the actual hold up was the opposition by one Lincoln Chaffee, a Republican. So this is how the White house is planning on reaching out to Democrats? I certainly hope they take note of this.